April & May Wrap-Up + June Reading Month (2018)

I’m so glad to be alive and posting on the blog again! It’s been raining steadily for the past one month now and my favourite month of the year has arrived. I can’t wait to get back into the blogging rhythm again and finally have the time to visit all the lovely people who follow me and chat with me here. Without further ado, let me talk about how my reading went in the month of April and May. After that, I’ll delve into my plans for June. Since I’m a bit more free from this month onwards, I’m attempting to read more than I have ever before and challenge myself, which is exciting and scary at the same time. Hopefully I’ll have only good news to share in my next wrap-up post.

I didn’t get a lot of reading done in these months, but I’m still happy with the amount because it could’ve easily been way lesser. I managed to finish a total of 12 books in the past two months. I’m going to count The Wrath and the Dawn because I was supposed to finish it in May, when in fact I only managed to do so this morning. The first book I finished in April was Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, which I’d actually started in March. I listened to it via audiobook like I did with the others in the series and it blew me away just like the previous instalments. I’ll have a review up soon on the blog, but I will say that it was a great finale to an amazing series and made it to my ‘Favourites’ shelf. I finished 3 books sent to me for review – To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo, Second-Hand Origin Stories by Lee Blauersouth and The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green. The review for The Smoke Thieves will be up next Thursday and I’ve already reviewed the other two, so go check out the posts for my in-depth thoughts on them. Other books I read for pleasure include Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman and Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco. Ghachar Ghochar is a really short and poignant story that was translated from my mother tongue and I loved it so much that I wanted to know what happened to the characters even after the last page. Norse Mythology was a pleasure to listen to as Neil himself has narrated the audiobook and managed to tell me stories that I had either forgotten or never heard before even though I’m quite familiar with this mythology. However, I found Stalking Jack the Ripper to be quite average as I didn’t quite gel with Audrey’s character. Since I read it via audiobook, I found it much more enjoyable because of the excellent narration.

In May, I decided to take part in the Asian Lit Bingo organized by LitCelebrAsian since May was Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. I aimed to finish one of the rows in the bingo, which is 5 books, but by the actual end of May I was only halfway through the fifth book. I read A Faint Promise of Rain by Anjali Mitter Duva, The Seprent’s Secret by Sayantani DasGupta, Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi, Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed and The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh for the various challenges in the bingo. I had the best time reading these books as I not only could relate to the characters who were from my culture, they were also all well-crafted stories that brought so many emotions to the surface for me. My favourite among them was Aru Shah and I now consider it one of the best middle grade books I’ve ever read. I plan to review them all on blog in the near future, but until then you can check out my thoughts on them on Goodreads. All in all, I managed a total of 8 points in the reading challenge as each of the 4 books I finished were all #ownvoices novels.

I’m skipping the highlights and memorable posts section this time because I don’t have a ton of things that I accomplished in these two months and I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t go blog hopping at all.

Mariam Sharma Hits the Road (June 5th) by Sheba Karim – The perfect summery road-trip book with a strong focus on friendship, culture and coming of age

Smoke in the Sun by Renée Ahdieh (June 5th) – The highly anticipated sequel to Flame in the Mist, a Japanese-inspired fantasy story about royalty, rebels and secrets

A Thousand Perfect Notes by C. G. Drews (June 7th) – Cait from Paper Fury, a.k.a. the queen of book blogging, writes about pain and love in this loose retelling of a historic composer’s life

Not the Girls You’re Looking For by Aminah Mae Safi (June 19th) – Another coming-of-age story with a desi teen, Lulu, who is a bit of a trouble-maker but is forced to make tough choices after things go horribly wrong in her life

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings (June 26th) – A short story collection with retellings of East and South Asian folktales and mythology featuring authors such as Renée Ahdieh, Sona Charaipotra, Roshani Chokshi and Cindy Pon, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman.

I don’t know if I can get to all of them, but I’m definitely going to try my best and see what happens. As long as I can read more this month than the previous months of 2018, I’m going to count it as a success. I haven’t started on any of the books yet as I had to finish The Wrath and the Dawn, which is a bit scary as I have a mountain of books to get through, but hopefully I will get lucky and be able to make time for reading all of these wonderful books.

What was your May reading month like? What are you looking forward to reading in June? Let’s catch up in the comments section below.

well may was a terrible reading month for me.So glad I’ll be buddy reading books with you this month. It will give me more motivation to read. Im excited for a thousand perfect notes too and also not the girls you are looking for. Have a great week.

Ahhhh, Nandini! I was just thinking about you the other day, because it struck me that I hadn’t seen anything new at your blog for a while. *hugs* I hope everything is OK.

OMG YOU LISTENED TO A NEIL GAIMAN AUDIOBOOK. That must have been magical. I don’t do audiobooks for various reasons, but I would love to listen to Neil read his own work. Once he read a Dr. Seuss novel as a milestone “perk” for Worldbuilders’ annual fundraiser, and even that was a treat. He just has an incredible voice for reading aloud.

I’m so glad you loved Faint Promise of Rain and The Wrath & The Dawn, too. The only other book you’ve read that’s on my radar is Stalking Jack the Ripper. It’s not a huge priority for me at the moment, and it’s also not the type of YA lit I typically read. But I’m willing to give it a try.

Everything is fine with me, Sara. Hope you’re doing well too! 🙂 My work just got a little less hectic, so I finally have the time to do everything I’ve wanted to in a long time. I’m so glad to be back! *hugs back* 😊

It was great! His voice is such a treat to listen to and it’s a great experience when the author reads his/her own work as they are intimately familiar with how it should be read. He even did different voices for all the characters and it’s one of the best audiobooks I’ve listened to. I hope you get a chance to experience it for yourself. 🙂

STJR was an average read for me. I feel like if I hadn’t listened to it via audiobook, I would’ve rated it much lesser. The writing is mediocre and Audrey has the annoying habit of repeating things that I just couldn’t get behind. The mystery was a bit of a let-down. I did enjoy the male main character and will probably continue the series just so I can get more from this character and their relationship. 😅 I wouldn’t recommend bumping it up your TBR and also being in the right mood to read it when you decide to pick it up. Hope that helps! 🙂

I know the feeling. I actually had to take almost 2 months away from blogging, with the exception of DIY MFA and Writers Helping Writers posts. I explained it briefly in the What’s Making Me Happy post that went up last week… But yeah. I just didn’t have the time or headspace except for those pieces. It was tough.

Got it re: SJTR. Whenever I get to it is when I’ll get to it, and I’ll keep my expectations… well, not low, so maybe reasonable?

Anyway, I’m glad to hear that things are less hectic on your end. Looking forward to your upcoming reviews! 🙂